Decision day is looming for plans that could see Retford only being covered by full time firefighters during the day.

Fire chiefs want to bring in a controversial new working pattern that would mean retained fire crews covering the town and surrounding area overnight.

The move, which the service says would save £1m a year, has been panned by objectors who claim lives will be lost as a result.

Chief Fire Officer of Nottinghamshire, John Buckley, is proposing a mixed crew system at two out of three stations - Retford, Worksop or Ashfield - which will see an on-call crew covering nights at the station, rather than the current full-time crew.

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Fire bosses have disputed the 15 minutes claim, saying their figures suggest a delay of four minutes could be expected.

A fire service spokesman said: “The recommendations are intended to address a number of issues for the Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, namely the 40 per cent reduction in demand on operational resources over a sustained period of time; the difficulty in recruiting retained firefighters to provide day-time cover; the changing demand between day and night-time activity; the need to support firefighters working to age 60; and a reduction in funding to the year 2020.

Fire bosses are any move would not lead to an inferior service

“It is important to note that mixed crewing is a crewing system that has been used by fire and rescue services around the UK for many years.

"In addition, more than half of our appliances are already crewed by retained staff, and there is no evidence to underpin the perception that response times or capability of crews is an issue in those areas."